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OpenOffice.org V3.0 Sets Download Record, 80% Windows
thefickler writes "The newest version of OpenOffice, version 3.0, has set a download record in its first week of availability. Most surprising is the fact that over 80% of downloads were from Windows users. As one commentator noted, when it comes to a choice between almost identical software (e.g. Microsoft Office and OpenOffice), price is the determining factor."
The question here is do the download numbers also reflect copies downloaded with package managers such in Linux distros such as Gentoo and Ubuntu, or does it only count people that only actually go to the webpage to download? The way Windows users and Linux users tend to get software these days tends to be a little different, where windows users expect going to the website, downloading, and using an something like Install Shield to install.
x86, oh yes, I'm pro.
Why is 80% surprising? The article makes it sound like that's high, but Windows has more than 80% of the desktop market, so it's still a lower percentage.
People don't want to spend money on something they can get for free? That's amazing! Seriously, I know I'm not working at the only company that is getting ready to dump Microsoft Office. It's pretty sad when you realize that the vast majority of your workers would be happier going from Office 2003 to OpenOffice than going to Office 2007.
Is that like saying a cordless phone and a cell phone is *almost* identical because they both make phone calls?
Or did I just get trolled by the summary?
OpenOffice.org 3 sounds like it's going to be great. And I'll start using it as soon as it shows up in the Ubuntu repository and I get prompted to update. Until then, I guess I won't. I guess that a lot of other people are having similar thoughts. (Not to mention, consider the number of MS Windows users compared to all non-MS Windows users, of course the majority of downloads are going to be for MS Windows.)
As for price, price is not a factor in me not using MS Windows (I just don't like it compared to GNOME, etc.). However, given the choice between MS Office and OpenOffice.org, it is.
However, it isn't the only thing, I just prefer OOo. I've been using it for a good number of years (and the only thing that used to piss me off was not being able to word count selections, they fixed that), and I've gotten used to the little quirks.
It also does things simply better! Take creating a business card, MS Word doesn't even come with a template for that job! (Not that OOo makes it easy... Why no bottom and right margin setting?)
I wank in the shower.
I've been scorched before on slashdot for praising MSOffice, but again I beg to disagree that this is a "choice between almost identical software".
The functionality, features and ease of use of MSOffice (as compared to Open Office) still make it far superior.
Particularly, the new interface of MSOffice makes it much easier and intuitive to use (for most users) compared to any other office automation software.
I think a lot of people might be looking at OOo because it is the only still-supported Office workalike that works mostly like MSOffice 97/XP/2003. For those of us forced to use MSOffice 2007 it's a no-brainer. Plus OOo can be installed alongside MSOffice 2007 with no problems.
Most Linux users get their software from their distro, so that's the reason for the predominance of Windows in the downloads. However, the conclusion reached by the author is arbitrary. There is nothing here showing that Office is "loosing" market dominance. All you have are OpenOffice download numbers, which don't prove anything about market dominance. Office isn't even available for Linux, so how is its market dominance changing from what it was before?
When downloading or updating java from Sun the default is to also install OO. Highly annoying if you ask me.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I'm not a huge fan of OpenOffice (which I refuse to call 'OpenOffice.org, because it's an office suite, not a webserver), but I'll say one thing - their main page is exactly right.
Go to www.openoffice.org and take a look. What do you see? A list of things to do, in big text, impossible to miss. I wanted to download. Normally I hunt for a link. Now, it takes me 5 seconds to grab what I want.
No wonder they got so many downloads - they didn't hide them three pages deep.
Unfortunately OpenOffice and Word are not identical pieces of software. Not by a long shot.
Um maybe you need to read more carefully but the link in the GGP is actually to a scam site (piratebay.com), not the legitimate Pirate bay (thepiratebay.com)
For some reason, OO.o isn't providing a PowerPC build of OpenOffice 3.0 in English. You can get 3.0 in French or Japanese, but the latest English build is 2.4. During development of 3.0, PPC builds have been provided by a third party, but they seem to have stopped at 3.0rc4. I wonder why.
Nope - Firefox had roughly 8 million downloads in a single day, versus the 3 million OO.o 3.0 downloads in the first week.
You should have sent a PDF instead and avoid all the problems.
when it comes to a choice between almost identical software (e.g. Microsoft Office and OpenOffice), price is the determining factor.
Actually, I'm currently doing my Master's thesis on this exact topic, namely the switching barriers between Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org. I'll post a summary of the full empirically assessed results to Slashdot when the study is complete. Currently, however, it looks like that Apathy is a much stronger factor than price. In fact, the author of the article hints at this:
In the past, it's always been included on my computers which is fine
Another important factor which I have hypothesized (and the literature suggests is accurate) trumps price is user inconvenience. Most users will pay to avoid hassle of any sorts. Further, most users will pay to avoid PERCEIVED inconvenience, even if, in reality, there would be no inconvenience. The FEAR of inconvenience is enough to make them continue to pay.
If you would like more details about my empirical research on this subject, feel free to contact me. A paper on the subject will be published by the Open Source Business Resource in the spring.
Exactly, sending out a resume in an editable format is just unprofessional for anything higher than a receptionist position.
If you are a dedicated ms-office user, and you really need 100% of the functionality of ms-office; then get ms-office - don't even think about anything else.
But, if you are like most of the population, and you just need a good office product, that is basically compatible with standard file formats, then openoffice does the trick.
JMHO.
This bogus statistic keeps resurfacing. Having x downloads doesn't mean you have x users.
The statistic I'm interested in is the percentage of people that downloaded it and then later updated - that's a much better representation of satisfied customers. The time between update release and downloaded update by a user is correlated to how much that user relies on the software package, especially so for OSS which is typically low in pre-release testing on different boxes compared to commercial software.
"Violence is the last refuge of the competent, and, generally, the first refuge of the incompetent" - Thing_1
I'm an English speaking PPC OS X user, you insensitive clod. I finally gave up waiting and grabbed the Spanish language version. But there still in no English version for OS X on the PowerPC.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
I work for Adobe on the ODF Technical Committee. ODF made some great decisions that make the format much more admirable over others (use of RelaxNG Schema, open formats wherever possible etc.). I am happy about the growing use of OO. Jon Bosak also has posted some great thoughts on this. Jon's thoughts on ODF, OOXML and PDF.
"Question everything, including this!" - http://technoracle.blogspot.com/
Oh I'd love to, with something with spikes on it. They just match up keywords in return for 10% of your starting salary. If they're looking for MS-SQL and you've only put down SQL Server experience you're not qualified. If you've got 10 years experience and know Perl and Python you're a worse candidate for a Ruby job than some guy fresh out of college who once wrote a 100 line Ruby script. Because, you know, he knows Ruby and you don't.
I only ever hear bad things about recruitment agents. I really don't know why more companies don't advertise directly. It can't be that much hassle to take a few phone calls and read a few emails.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Check out the number of spam sites already, google for openoffice (http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=openoffice), and you get sponsored links like these -
# OpenOffice.org 3 www.office-soft.net Get the Free OpenOffice Download the latest Version |
# OpenOffice 2008 - Free OpenOffice.org-Suite.com OpenOffice Latest Version. Fast & Easy - 100% Guaranteed.
This one is quite nasty http://www.office-soft.net/uk/
Click the link "You must accept the terms and conditions to download any program"
PRELIMINARY WARNING:
THE COST OF EACH SMS FROM THE USER'S MOBILE PHONE IS 1.5 POUNDS (VAT INCLUDED). UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED, THE DOWNLOAD COST SHALL BE FOUR SMS.
Please read these USAGE CONDITIONS carefully and, if appropriate, use the download service which shall imply the express and complete acceptance of each and every one of these USAGE CONDITIONS. Otherwise, please close this website.
ONE. PREMIUM SERVICE DESCRIPTION
1.1. Through this website (hereinafter the Website), users can download executables that contain the selected computer program from our servers to their hard drive (the SOFTWARE).
1.2. Netlink Network Corp. offers a PREMIUM high speed download service that is efficient and virus free. In exchange, the user shall first send three SMS under the conditions specified in clause 2.2 that defines the commercial conditions of the service.
TWO. USE OF THE PREMIUM SERVICE
2.1. In order to access the PREMIUM service, the user shall first send three SMS to 88889 as per the detailed instructions provided at all times in the download section of the Website.
2.2. The cost of each SMS sent by the user to said number is 1.50 pounds + VAT; therefore the total cost of access to the PREMIUM service shall be 3.60 Euros + VAT.
2.3. After sending the three SMS, and always in accordance with the detailed instructions provided in the download section, the user shall receive a code that will enable him to perform the high speed download through the PREMIUM service.
etc. The others are similar scams, they want you to give your email address, sent them money by credit card, or by SMS, and have bogus stamps of officialdom and verisign secured etc.
Of course, when the scammers want in, it means the project is a success.
Some differences between Word and WordPerfect:
1. Word handles word count differently to WordPerfect. WordPerfect counts all words, even those in footnotes. Word didn't for a long time (I think they might have fixed that now).
Word was unwelcome as a format in many legal courts in the US, because some types of filing have word count limits and users or Word consistently over-ran, thus filing documents that the court could not accept.
2. Word has a paragraph-based formatting engine, which is very different to the stream based one in WordPerfect. That's a huge difference - it's like saying that Word is a bitmap painting package, and WordPerfect is a vector one.
Those are two differences off the top of my head. I'd say that switching from WordPerfect to Word could well require training, especially if these kinds of differences were ones you used a lot in your work.
Here's one practical example I found many years ago:
Word has no concept of right-justification within a line unless you use tabs. WordPerfect does. If you right-justify in WordPerfect and then change your margins, paper size or paper orientation then WordPerfect just handles it for you - the text snaps to the new margin with no effort required on your part.
When I had to use Word, I had to learn the tab-based workaround. And I had to change the formatting of some kinds of documents I produced, as switching from portrait to landscape meant much more extra work as I then had to change all the tab stops on those pages too.
(I eventually solved this by creating styles with the tab stops in them, one for each page orientation. But that solution took time to arrive at.)
Whether your word processor is Word, WordPerfect, OpenOffice.org's Writer, AbiWord, or something else - any heavy use will likely expose you to some feature that either has no direct analogue in other products, or that works differently in them.
If all you ever do is write one-page letters with no real formatting beyond basic text appearance, right-justifying paragraphs and indenting text, then what I've written means nothing to you. You're in the 80% of people who use only 20% of the features. (Possibly even 90%/10% these days.)
For the other 20%, switching word processors will always mean retraining to some degree, as they find these differences by trail and error.
Why on earth would you send someone an electronic copy of your resume in a *any* editable word processor format? Especially when different wrd processors, or even different versions of the same word processor will render the same document in completely different ways.
PDF would be the way to go, regardless of the tool you originally use to enter it.
I assume you don't work in the systems administration field, or IT security. If you do I feel sorry for whatever company hired you (both due to the idiocy in accepting such a format, and because they've hired someone incompetent enough to send it that way in the first place)
People are going to flame you and call you stupid, so let me just head off some of their inevitable criticisms:
You should have checked!
No, you shouldn't have had to have checked. Besides, this assumes that you still have to have MS Office and OO.o, and isn't the whole point of this bru-ha-ha to say that you don't need MS Office if you have the free and wonderful OO.o? No, Word did not screw up your CV. OO.o does not export to Word correctly. It's OO.o's responsibility to properly support the de facto industry standard.
You should have sent a PDF!
Okay, smart guys, you try sending PDFs instead of Word documents. There are still lots of moronic HR departments (well, are there any other kind?) who don't even know what they are. The first time I started sending those, I got a call back from an angry HR person saying "We don't take scanned CVs!" I was honestly confused. "I'm sorry, but that is just a PDF of my CV. It's not scanned." "We have to be able to search the text. Please send us the original Word document."
Well you know, and I know that you can very well search the text of a PDF, but that isn't the point; the point is whether HR knows, and, as I think I've already established, those people are borderline retarded.
Also, a lot of places actually request .docs. If OO.o can't produce them correctly, then you look like an idiot. In my case in the above story, where I was requested to send a .doc? It meant I had to get ahold of MS Office, because I'd been using (and liking) OO.o for a year.
Hell, the next problem I had was that I had my "letterhead" in my header in Word, and an HR guy called me complaining that I'd used a "gray font," and that it was no wonder I didn't have a job if I didn't know how to format a Word document correctly. "It's conventional to make your name and address legibile to the person looking at your CV," he said. So I went back and reformatted all of that stuff by hand, like an idiot who can't use software.
In all of these cases, I did the right thing. In none of these cases was the company itself really to blame. They might have been nice places to work. But when you're applying for a job, you first have to get through the imbeciles in HR who stand guard at the gate. Anything that they don't understand--and that's a lot, it turns out--is going to get your CV tossed in the bin.
Why would you want to work somewhere that wants .docs and doesn't worship at the throne of OSS???
Because he needs a job so he can, you know, eat.
OO.o is damn nice for being free, and I really liked some of its features that are missing in Office. But, in all honestly, Office does more better and is the industry standard.
And finally, to all the people going on about having to pay for PDF export? Um, sourceforge up yourself some PDFcreator. It's free. I've been using it for years without issue.
That's better than the WYSIWTF that Frontpage managed...